Carers allowance breaches modern slavery laws surely

[Vatsallfolks]

This country has a minimum wage . It’s a fact . If you are over 21 years old it is £12.21 ph.

Therefore can somebody please explain why Carers Allowance is £83. 30 per week whilst stipulating that carers should be looking after their caree a minimum of 35 hours a week and then some .. which equates to £2.38 per hour .. and then .. we are ‘allowed’ to work another 18 hours.. (if we only could but we can’t as our cared for person actually doesn’t have a 36 hour cut off !!) just to equate to a minimum wage for 54 hour week ??
(when in fact many of us do a 189 hour week ? (24/7) which in reality is £2207 per week ..

so in essence e what I am saying is this . I could say NO .. I’m not doing it anymore.. and it will cost the govt a minimum of the minimum wage for him to be looked after .. but if don’t .. because I love him.. I had to give up my job to care for him .. which I have again because I love him .. but my God .. aren’t the Government taking the piss ?

Look around the world and there are many religious countries that don't see care as the responsibility of society at large. It is very much a family matter. The same goes for our history as a country. You are rewriting history and misrepresenting other countries to suggest otherwise. It simply isn't the correct to suggest that a family is the same as a state or even smaller community just at a smaller scale. It's clear that the level of vested interest and emotion involved is fundamentally different.

As I said, respectfully I don't agree with your assertions.

Fair enough! We don't have to agree. I think it is a matter of objective fact though and evidenced through the lack of welfare state systems or other comparable systems in other countries. To be honest, it isn't even true to say that there is a correlation between strong religious ethos in a country that has some focus on caring for the vulnerable and the development of a system at a societal level that cares for the weak and vulnerable. The most comprehensive systems are certainly not in the most religious countries.

You are deliberately missing the point that families were first part of tribes, then of "villages" then "community" . The atomisation encouraged by the current capitalist model and enabled by isolationist technology is an unprecedented change and the psychological impact of it has yet to be fully measured or realised.

For example, the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" isn't mythical in origin.

If the state wants all able-bodied adults to be in work, it reduces the ability of family to step up, and heads towards having to outsource care that people, (usually women, but not always) were able to because financial pressures were different. Outsourced care then becomes charged at a premium, and outstrips in many cases the advantages of the family earning. State provision is tightly budgeted, private provision costs more than the state is willing to provide, and what is earned by working family members is sucked into a corporate vortex, with poor outcomes for the allegedly cared for, despite best efforts.

For all we are allegedly "advanced" while profiteering is the basic driver of the economy, real time benefits of working are reducing to an almost serfdom level.

It is not entitlement to expect state support if you are holding up your end of the bargain, and you are still out of pocket and care provision is inadequate.

And yes, there is alot of oblique undertones of Scrooge mentality seeping into politics and the public mentality by virtue of carefully crafted propaganda, and it is an extreme "right wing" mentality.

There's plenty of hypocrisy in religion, but those that do at least try to follow Christ's (alleged) teachings (disclaimer, not religious myself) often have strong community based and charitable movements within them, which may come with faith based strings, but then so does state provision, in terms of practical condionality. Families congregate together and while it might be a "family matter" to care for those who need it, the wider community is often involved. It may be to get the pearly gate brownie points, but it does a necessary job.

I don't recognise a world where callous negligence and brutality was a universal norm, otherwise Dickens wouldn't have had sources for his Tiny Tim character. There wouldn't have been alms for the poor. Historical solutions might not have measured up to the higher standards we recognise as fundamentally beneficial to individuals and wider society, but that's what progress is about - it starts with something and evolves.

I have Libertarian friends with whom I can't discuss these things because their "small state" Utopia is unviable without dismantling the current system and engaging in proper redistribution of wealth through the functionality of the economy, which nobody wants as the fallout would be long term pain and unpredictable gain.

If we've got this far why is it beyond us to adapt our ever more quickly changing society and culture to make things more equitable. Not everyone wants to hustle their way into the VIP billionaire's club, for myself, a stab at survival and less living in a state of perpetual dread due to obsolescence would be a start.

I’m very surprised to read this. I was told that a fostering couple; one can work full time and a single person could work part time? Plus I always thought foster allowance is tax free? Assuming it’s area dependent?

Hi

I currently employ PAs on behalf of my son, and have done for the last 10+ years. I know you were one, but that's not quite the same as managing them. A personal budget was considered - but the wait time to go through the bureaucratic system rendered it useless, and that's with someone who has legal expertise working together with a family member who's a social worker. In fact, irony of ironies, FiL was one of the redoubtable buggers who actually led on the development and introduction of Direct Payments, both nationally and locally. He worked as a director for an advocacy agency for decades.

He asked for more support, it wasn't his 'wishes' that limited his support. He just wanted to stay in his own home, where he'd lived for nearly 40 years, because his wife had recently died. This isn't about 'wishes', this is about choice.

You talk as if the 'solutions' are in place and it's the fault of the disabled people or their family members that these aren't actioned. The solutions are only there in theory, not in practice. There's a whole body of research that bears this out.

You have conflated two issues. Caring for an elderly relative / child with a disability -v- caring for an adult for 40+ years. However, I do agree that there needs to be a sensible discussion about this, because the 40+ years, with the NHS and Social Services outsourcing 'informal care' to families, can't continue.

Examples of care I have to provide for my adult son:
Wake nights during volatile seizure activity
Administration of emergency meds (controlled drugs, sometimes invasively) and oxygen
Manual handling (lifting, turning, carrying)
Dealing with medical emergencies such as life threatening psychosis and violence.

You think that should attract a 'benefit' of something like £83 pw? For decades?

I do wonder if families refused to provide care on a wide scale then we’d see euthanasia being introduced and mandated for some. For the 60k a year plus dementia sufferer, the £100k a year plus residential placement. The only reason the state can afford to support the few is because unpaid carers support the many.

I haven't conflated two issues. Care is care. Even childcare roughly falls into this category broadly. The question is who is responsible for providing care to others?

So far we have come up with different answers for different groups in society. Childcare largely falls to the parents with varying levels of assistance from the state. Elderly care generally falls to the family or the individual to pay unless they can't afford to pay and then the state steps in. Disabled people's care is another grey area. The state is seemingly ultimately responsible but they simply don't have the resources to fund the necessary care for all disabled people and everyone else if friends and family walked away and stopped providing the informal care that the disabled people rely on.

Ultimately it comes back to the fact that family are on the hook for providing at some of their care to their disabled relatives. I say this as someone that also undertakes some caring responsibilities for a disabled relative but absolutely not to the same extent that you do. Threatening to stop caring for all disabled relatives en masses would be the same as all parents threatening to leave their children in foster homes. The system couldn't cope and it would expose the fact that ultimately those that care about the individuals involved will always carry the burden of responsibility for them. We will step in when the state falters. I just wish there was more honesty around this! We haven't departed too far from what has existed for millennia before the creation of the welfare state.

No, care is not care. Parenting is looking after your own children. When you outsource that to someone else it becomes childcare. Society has a reasonable expectation that parents should parent their own children. We think of it as a social responsibility. If parents fail to do this, then society will prosecute them, e.g. for neglect.

In terms of care for disabled people, it's not a grey area, and we think of this as medical or health care. Society doesn't have the reasonable expectation that people, depending on random circumstances, should become unqualified nursing staff. This is most evident in personal injury cases, for example, if a birth is mismanaged and the baby is deprived of oxygen for sufficient time to cause brain damage (I used to work in med neg for the NHS). In such a case the damage and loss is quantifiable and compensation paid to account for care costs and impact on the family - this often runs into £millions. In this way, we can see that there is no expectation for such costs to simply be absorbed, the fact that they are for some people is a political choice.

However, I do agree that care for the elderly is a grey area. It was pretty simple when men were typically working until 65 and then dying in their early 70s. There was no expectation that people would be living into their 80s and requiring increasing support. It's for this reason that 'social care' has become such a hot potato in recent years.

The paragraph sandwich I've written above shows the difference between social and medical / healthcare, with the former being social and the latter being political. The reason this is important is because political is determined by law, and the OP was asking about law. It is, therefore, impossible to address the question without understanding the difference, and conflating the social and political demonstrates a failure to do so.

No it is not like child benefit. Child Benefit is given alongside the basic UC rate and child element of UC

Carers Allowance is deducted from the UC (which is the basic rate plus the carers element)

So a carer who is not working/doesn't have a partner working will get

UC basic rate £400.14 a month and the Carers Element of £201.68.

Carers Allowance is deducted from this. The maximum they are entitled to is £601.82 a month.

Carers of adults have no obligation to do so, and save the state huge sums of money. They get £86 pounds a week, for the dedication and hard work. They also keep the person they care for safer than they would be in care settings.

If all of those carers decided to take their 2 weeks holiday at the same time and not provide care, the country would be fucked.

Carers do not have to provide the care, this would cause the NHS/Social Care to collapse as they would be unable to provide the care currently being provided by the army of unpaid carers.

Edit for typo

It’s an allowance, not a salary, which has to be paid for by the state.

More people now now are net beneficiaries from the state than are contributors. If you care for a disabled relative they should get PIP which should pay for additional care.

I fundamentally disagree. Care is care. You can categorise them differently all you like but the distinctions can be arbitrary and blurry. Almost half of 90 year olds report a disability that limits them a lot and they absolutely will need medical and health care. Many adults with learning disabilities often need similar levels of care and support that would ordinarily be provided to children. The physical act of caring for people is often very similar. I say this from experience before people come at me. I have experience of both.

Our society treats caring for children differently to caring for disabled people but historically in this country and still in most countries around the world, the care of disabled people falls to the family in the same way that the care of the elderly and children would. Your needs wouldn't miraculously become 'social' care just because you hit a certain age.

You are right that we have theoretically made a choice as a country to treat disabled care differently than other forms of care in terms of entitlement to care. The reality is though that we do not have the resources or money in the public system to adequately care for the disabled if all family members refused to care for their loved ones or demanded a proper wage for doing so. It is a grey area. Disabled people have rights to state funded care but these rights could not be exercised if the system can't cope. Hell, the support isn't there right now for my relative to live well if family didn't step in and do a lot for them. Living in a dream world where disabled care could be properly funded because we think it's the morally correct thing to do is never going to happen. Disability rates are exploding and the money available is decreasing. We need to be honest about this.

It isn’t the care of the disabled person that this post is about. It’s the living expenses of the carer. If people are giving up full time jobs to care for a relative, on an allowance of £83.30 a week, with the expectation that they are providing 35 hours a week care (in reality it is usually a lot more), how are they then supposed to live? Of course the alternative is that they pass the care of the person over to the state, which would cost the state substantially more than £83.30 a week.

So what is your proposed solution? In a society where families need 2 working adults to provide a decent standard of living, who is going to care for these people?

ETA I’ve just read a comment on another thread saying that living on one salary is a luxury not many can afford. It’s true. But that’s precisely what carers are expected to do.

"If you care for a disabled relative they should get PIP which should pay for additional care."

If care for your disabled relative costs £100 a hour PIP doesn't go very far.

I don't have the solution and neither does anyone else. I'm not sure there even is one really. The masses funding the vulnerable few worked for decades until the numbers of vulnerable exploded and the working masses have decreased and are struggling with a CoL crisis themselves. Realistically we are going to be entering a particularly painful time as the population pyramid becomes top heavy and care needs massively increase.

The one thing I am absolutely certain of though as we need more honesty in this conversation about what individuals can expect from the state. This is true for children, the disabled and the old. If we know now for example that there is unlikely to be a state pension as we know it for people that are currently 40 or younger then we should be bloody well telling people that. Letting them know that saving for old age is a massive priority. People choosing to have children need to know that of their child is disabled or has additional needs then there is a high chance you will be stuck with a large portion of the caring responsibilities.

How does pip pay for additional care when many need it for equipment, extra heating and other costs of being disabled? Pip isn't a bottomless money pit that people are making it out to be

People choosing to have children need to know that of their child is disabled or has additional needs then there is a high chance you will be stuck with a large portion of the caring responsibilities

It’s much broader than that though, many people on carers allowance aren’t caring for their disabled child. The message is more that if you have an ill or disabled relative, at any point in your life, then unless you are independently wealthy you cannot both care for them and have a decent standard of living.

In my case, I care for my disabled child because he’s my child, and I love him. I gave up my £65k a year job to do so, and it’s unlikely I’ll ever earn again due to his needs. And fundamentally, that’s what the state relies on. The love for your relative overriding the financial considerations.

Agree 💯 OP

Its an absolute disgrace and blatant discrimination. Condemning many thousands of women to abject poverty in old age.

Your whole argument is based on the idea that 'care is care'. For your argument to hold you would have say that choosing to have a baby, and then caring for that newborn, is the same as caring for someone with life changing injuries after an RTA. No. These are two different types of care. The first one can be anticipated and the caring relationship is entered into voluntarily. The second one isn't anticipated and the caring relationship is compulsory (due to lack of statutory services). These just aren't the same.

Adults with learning disabilities don't 'often need similar levels of care and support that would ordinarily be provided to children'. For example, lifting a kid who's 2 stone isn't the same as lifting an adult who's 12 stone. Similarly, feeding a toddler who can push your hand away isn't the same as feeding an adult who can punch you in the face. Same with bathing. Same with continence issues. It's completely different.

Our society treats caring for children completely differently to 200 years ago. The idea of 'childhood' is a relatively modern phenomenon. And we aren't 'most countries around the world', we're one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The comparison shouldn't be with Ethiopia, it should be with Finland, or Sweden, or Germany, etc. Why on earth would we want to adopt the practices of developing countries?

In term of 'The reality is though that we do not have the resources or money in the public system to adequately care for the disabled if all family members refused to care for their loved ones or demanded a proper wage for doing so,' this is what is known as the scarcity argument, and it's entirely invented. You have to ask yourself why we don't have the resources or money in the public sector. To answer that question you have to ask yourself where all the money is. As many will recall, there was a magic money tree when the government were giving their mates backhanders during covid to provide substandard PPE. There's also the small matter of corporate tax evasion that costs the UK £billions upon £billions every year. In other words, the money is there, it's just being transferred into the hands of the few at the cost of the many.

^^ I'm not living in a dream world. I perfectly understand the reality of the situation. Yes, we do need to be honest about this and not swallow wholesale the myth of scarcity propounded by a press who are owned by the very people currently benefiting from 'story'.

Yes, I agree. The message is probably broader. I'm not sure it's fair to suggest though that it's the state that relies on informal care. Ultimately it is your disabled relative relying on this (as mine does too). The state can't meet the care needs of every disabled person. If the state fails then it isn't the state that will lose out but the disabled individuals. Our loved ones. This is why we do it. As I mentioned before, my big wish is that we have an honest and open discussion about this as a society instead of pretending that the state realistically can meet everyone's care needs. It sets up unrealistic expectations and ultimately leads to huge disappointment and resentment. The welfare state only can go so far.

I'm not sure it's fair to suggest though that it's the state that relies on informal care

Financially, the state absolutely does rely on informal care.

I think there is a danger in pushing for more. The result would probably be tougher rules and lots of carers, maybe the majority, getting nothing.

I say that as a carer who got nothing as I had to work and now get pension but I'd hate people to lose out.